Windows is the most troublesome over the long haul, mostly because of malware, but choosing between the other two comes down to taste. I prefer Linux for the customisability myself, but if you're struggling with the flexibility freedom buys you, a Mac's not a bad choice.
I'm typing this on a Windows PC. I've also got three other computers. One is a PowerMac running Mac OS7, but it hasn't worked in about 1 1/2 years. Another is a dualboot DEC Alpha running NT4.0 and Redhat. The fourth one is a PC running Linspire Linux I bought about 10 months ago. I haven't used it much other than for storage, I added a second hdd of 750GB for the home directory. When I get a new MBP I'll setup the PC as a server and test machine but mainly use the MBP.
I'd love to see you make ends meet in large parts of this country on ~12k a year
I'm on disability and don't work so I get monthly payments which is less than $800 a month. Now, I've got another income which pays my housing bill of $600, but since I live alone I could reduce the costs of housing by having roommates.
You can't support one person on that, let alone 3 or 4
It's a struggle but I get by for myself. Of course I'm single and have no dependents, but like I said it's everyone's responsibility to make sure they can support another person before they get married and or have children. If you can't make it then don't have them!
mega conglomerates also provide high entry independent of government.
In broadcasting yes, but that's because the FCC sales licenses only to those with megabucks. Because of these airwave licenses the FFC sold, mass media is able to keep out competitors. Don't believe me, try to start your own broadcasting radio or tv station. Dispite modern techonolgy making it possible for more stations to occupy the same frequency bands, those who already have licenses fight tooth and nail to prevent more stations from starting. Pirate radio stations are usually shutdown by the FCC as soon as another local station complains even though there is no interference. As for print media, even staid newspapers are struggling, because of the internet. At the same tyme some groups are making good use of the net, such as Meetup, Indy Media, and Narco News.
of course how can you compete with Walmart and Target?
How did they get so big? By giving people low prices. If you want to fight them then when they plan to build a new store in your area you need to attend planning and zoning board meetings and voice your opposition. Make it known to local politicians your position, afterall they can't build a new store without governemnt approval. Then campaign at the state level to have the legislature pass a bill, and have the governor sign it, requiring them to provide health benefits to thier employees.
Many libertarians here on/. even supported ms business tactics and opposed any ruling on them as it would affect the free market.
Some may but I'm one that opposes any and all anticompetitive business practices, and if anyone doesn't then they are neither Libertarian nor freemarket advocates. Afterall a market is only free when there's free competition.
"It's becoming increasingly apparent that the second might need to be taken out and exercised in the near future.:("
The really sad part is that your probably right.
No, the REALLY sad part is that, no matter how much NEED there might be for it, it won't happen. Americans have made apathy an art-form.
That's pretty prevalent in most societies, when the living generations haven't seen any fighting to preserve liberty they get apathic, complacent. I think this is what Thomas Jefferson meant when he said the USA should have a revolution every 20 years.
To me that is that is the free market is anarchy run by corporate barons. Theoriticaly a newer competitor will come in to save us. But the barriers of entry are so large its impossible.
In a free market there wouldn't be corporate barons and there wouldn't be barriers to entry into a market. Those barriers are there because incumbent corporations have paid politicans to raise artifical barriers. No barriers meas more competition, just as with Google pressuring the FCC to allow open access to the airwaves being freed up by the switch to digital tv. Open access will create competition and the telcos along with others will see a loosing of their power. Kind of like cellphones did to landline phone companies.
Quite frankly there is no reason at all children need to be on the net - period....How about a) parents parent and b) go back to the ancient methods of teaching which some how taught kids how to read, write, do math and put a man on the moon.
Like children can't learn something new on the net. Part of being a parent is watching your kids, and that includes watching what they do on the computer. Computers can also be used to learn to read, afterall what's a person doing on the net if they can't read? Or write, or do math. I once ordered a PC for my sister and her daughter, as part of the software package I ordered educational programs for my neice. Now as to whether she ever used them I don't know. Me, I decided I wanted to major in and become a Computer Engineer in high school after teaching myself BASIC on a dumb terminal in the school library that was hooked up to the mainframe downtown, before the net existed like it does now.
I'd love to be a libertarian, but it seems I'd have to believe that the free market works, and corporations are free to do business however they wish.
In a freemarket corporations would not have the power they currently enjoy. For instance under a freemaket the RI/MPAA wouldn't exist, or at least wouldn't be able to go after grannies or teens because copyrights and patents would not exist.
I wouldn't mind, assuming we returned corporations to a public charter system, in which a corporation may have its charter revoked if it is found to behave illegally.
Yeap, it used to be a corporation could have it's charter cancelled if it didn't live up to it's obligation to improve the commn or public good. Thomas Jefferson railed and warned of corporations and power, Thomas Jefferson: Against Corporate Power.
...Kenneth Lay...
If the libertarians can promise me that, I'm a convert. 'Cause except for the whole trust-in-the-free-market thing, I'm mostly there.
It was both Democrats and Republicans that allowed Enron to happen, not Libertarians
No need to vote 3rd party: vote for Ron Paul. He is basically a libertarian running as a Republican. The more I listen to the guy, the more I like him.
Ron Paul is Libertarian, but only because the Republican Party no longer is the party of small government, it hasn't been since Ike was pres. I voted for him the first tyme he ran for president in 1988, on the Libertarian Party ticket, and I'll vote for him in 2008 if he's on the ballot. Heck, even though I'm registered No Party Preference, I'll change my registration to Republican so I can vote for him in the primary. Of course after afterwards I'll change right back.
Or what about the end of the days when you could feed 3 people one the wages of one?
That's only because Dick and Jane have to have the lastest and greatest toys, be it iPod, iPhones, or wii, at least before a lot of well paying jobs were outsourced.
Economic realities have a lot more to do with parents letting the boob tube educate their kids then their choice does.
It was thier choice to have one or more children If a person is not in a position to take care of children s/he shouldn't have any.
Or the other side of the coin are the crack whores that pop one out after another simply to get more money from the government to further fuel their addiction.
I guess you're one of those who hasn't heard welfare was reformed in the 1990s after Newt Gingrich had his Contract With America passed. Now there's a tyme limit of 5 years that you can be on welfare and collect money from the feds.
It's hard for parents to stop kids from viewing offensive content. I remember hearing on the radio that children as young as ten years old are learning how to bypass filtering. Particularly in (previous versions of) Windows, where every user is a root user, it's very difficult to stop the kids from using these root privileges to undo all the work you put in.
It's only hard for those parents who don't parent. They need to watch their children and stop crying to have to government do their job. If they didn't want to be parents they never should have had them.
it's very difficult to stop the kids from using these root privileges to undo all the work you put in.
If a parent can't be there to watch their kids then they need to prevent then from havig access to the computer. Turn it off, have it plugged into an outlet with a switch and turn the switch off, remove the powercord and put it under lock and key. If the kids are that bad, then maybe you need to take parenting classes, sure there's an occasional bad apple but most problems with kids is because parents aren't doing their job.
In my day, before the wide awareness of the net and the existence of http kids that wanted to jack off in the dark in their bedroom could just go dumpster diving. The neighbor kid had a whole duffel back of wares acquired in just this manner.
Heck, I didn't even have go dumpster diving, my mom gave me playboy and penthouse to look at.
But I'd rather my kids see a boob and suffice a natural desire, than hrm I dont know drugs, gang banging, drinking, smoking, HAVING sex, skipping school, watching the news and seeking people blown up/burned, and the rest of the horrible things out in the REAL world.
Ah but having sex is one of the good things in the world. As is drinking.
As for growing up in a "dangerous world", I can assure you that what was "normal" behaviour in the 60's towards kids would now land you in jail.
Ain't that true? I recall growing up my mom would occasionally order a glass of wine when we went out to eat. A parent doing that today would be arrested, have thier children taken away, and tossed into gail.
We grew up in a dangerous world, so will they. Its up to the parents to monitor what they're doing not the state.
"We" grew up in a dangerous internet enabled world.
"They" (Senators/Congress/most parents) didn't.
You may of grown up in an internet enabled world, but not all of us were. I was born before John F Kennedy was shot. There was no web or internet as we know it today while I was growing up. There was arpanet and milnet, which only the rare person knew of.
It was disappointing when Ask bought out Teoma, that was a good search engine.
Yea, I used to use Teoma a lot, when I didn't get a result or not what I was looking for from Google. Another I use a lot also is Mooter. Alta Vista still returns good text search results, though I don't use it much. Another I use, for specific searchs, is About. Actually it was Google that led me to using About. I googled for some archeology and anthropology searchs and Google returned About's Archeology and anthropology section in the top results. Later I googled for something in photogaphy and once again Google returned an About section Photography, in the top spot.
I have no idea, I never heard of it. Since it's been more than 10 years since I've installed software on a Mac, things may of changed. But as of a few months ago I've heard about the only think you need to do in install software in OSX is create an app folder in the Application folder and drag the.dmg file there. Maybe I heard wrong, I'm going to find RSN as I plan on getting a Macbook Pro.
Google isn't just being a saint, either, and fighting for our rights, which apparently are at the mercy of corporations with lots of money (fun!). Google's business strategy is breaking up the current monopolistic industries as a whole so that it can compete in all those markets with it's own software.
Oh, I agree. Google is a business not a charity. However they are pressing for an open market against the incumbents businesses, which benefits the population. Just because an entity makes profit doesn't mean it's bad.
Sure, Google has done some irritating things here and there but as a whole they stick up for consumer freedoms I think. I hope Google never reaches the point where it will be more profitable for them to start taking away freedoms in the spirit of most current monopolies. Hopefully never, since their current leaders seem to understand the benefit of actually going with the grain of consumer freedoms like FOSS, instead of against it, at least for some of their supported software.
Google got big in part because it gave searchers relevant search results as well as "do no evil". However with new leadership Google can turn out the same as other businesses. If they do though another startup can just step up and do the same. Such as "Jimbo" Jimmy Wales from the wikipedia, he's working on a collaberative search engine.
"Small farmers can grow either, switchgrass for ethanol production and hemp for food or ethanol. This will create an income for these farmers, so it's not either food or fuel"
For a few seconds perhaps, before they are put out of business by the big producers in the west.
Without subsidies big western producers couldn't produce ethanol then ship it for sale to third world countries cheaper than local farmers and producers could. However this wouldn't prevent wealthy landowners there from dominating the industry. And in some cases western companies pay military or paramilitaries groups. For instance Coca Cola has paid paramilitary leaders in Colombia to keep workers from starting unions. Stuff like this though happens because government allows it, and may even encourage it.
I didn't even know what dpkg was until I looked it up after you mentioned it.
You don't need to know. It just works.
Do you know how Windows handles.msi files when you double-click them?
No, I don't know how.msi files work, just that they do although not always that well. And uninstaller routines, when software has one, don't work well either. That's one reason I think OSX is better, there's no registry or dependents. An installer,.dmg, may put.plist files in the preferences folder but that's about it.
In my original post I asked "Ah but you still have to install Automatix and how many people new to Linux will be able to install it without giving up? ", I didn't specify Ubuntu or Linspire. Ah, going back up the thread I see the person you replied to did specify Kubuntu. However my question still stands, how many switchers will know how to install Automatix? I have Linspire and your post is the first tyme I heard of it.
Ubuntu is based on Debian and includes dpkg in the base install.
So is Linspire. That doesn't mean all Debian, Linspire, or Ubuntu users know dpkg is in the base install. I didn't even know what dpkg was until I looked it up after you mentioned it.
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Windows is the most troublesome over the long haul, mostly because of malware, but choosing between the other two comes down to taste. I prefer Linux for the customisability myself, but if you're struggling with the flexibility freedom buys you, a Mac's not a bad choice.
I'm typing this on a Windows PC. I've also got three other computers. One is a PowerMac running Mac OS7, but it hasn't worked in about 1 1/2 years. Another is a dualboot DEC Alpha running NT4.0 and Redhat. The fourth one is a PC running Linspire Linux I bought about 10 months ago. I haven't used it much other than for storage, I added a second hdd of 750GB for the home directory. When I get a new MBP I'll setup the PC as a server and test machine but mainly use the MBP.
FalconI'd love to see you make ends meet in large parts of this country on ~12k a year
I'm on disability and don't work so I get monthly payments which is less than $800 a month. Now, I've got another income which pays my housing bill of $600, but since I live alone I could reduce the costs of housing by having roommates.
You can't support one person on that, let alone 3 or 4
It's a struggle but I get by for myself. Of course I'm single and have no dependents, but like I said it's everyone's responsibility to make sure they can support another person before they get married and or have children. If you can't make it then don't have them!
Falconmega conglomerates also provide high entry independent of government.
In broadcasting yes, but that's because the FCC sales licenses only to those with megabucks. Because of these airwave licenses the FFC sold, mass media is able to keep out competitors. Don't believe me, try to start your own broadcasting radio or tv station. Dispite modern techonolgy making it possible for more stations to occupy the same frequency bands, those who already have licenses fight tooth and nail to prevent more stations from starting. Pirate radio stations are usually shutdown by the FCC as soon as another local station complains even though there is no interference. As for print media, even staid newspapers are struggling, because of the internet. At the same tyme some groups are making good use of the net, such as Meetup, Indy Media, and Narco News.
of course how can you compete with Walmart and Target?
How did they get so big? By giving people low prices. If you want to fight them then when they plan to build a new store in your area you need to attend planning and zoning board meetings and voice your opposition. Make it known to local politicians your position, afterall they can't build a new store without governemnt approval. Then campaign at the state level to have the legislature pass a bill, and have the governor sign it, requiring them to provide health benefits to thier employees.
Many libertarians here on /. even supported ms business tactics and opposed any ruling on them as it would affect the free market.
Some may but I'm one that opposes any and all anticompetitive business practices, and if anyone doesn't then they are neither Libertarian nor freemarket advocates. Afterall a market is only free when there's free competition.
FalconThe really sad part is that your probably right.
No, the REALLY sad part is that, no matter how much NEED there might be for it, it won't happen. Americans have made apathy an art-form.
That's pretty prevalent in most societies, when the living generations haven't seen any fighting to preserve liberty they get apathic, complacent. I think this is what Thomas Jefferson meant when he said the USA should have a revolution every 20 years.
FalconTo me that is that is the free market is anarchy run by corporate barons. Theoriticaly a newer competitor will come in to save us. But the barriers of entry are so large its impossible.
In a free market there wouldn't be corporate barons and there wouldn't be barriers to entry into a market. Those barriers are there because incumbent corporations have paid politicans to raise artifical barriers. No barriers meas more competition, just as with Google pressuring the FCC to allow open access to the airwaves being freed up by the switch to digital tv. Open access will create competition and the telcos along with others will see a loosing of their power. Kind of like cellphones did to landline phone companies.
FalconQuite frankly there is no reason at all children need to be on the net - period....How about a) parents parent and b) go back to the ancient methods of teaching which some how taught kids how to read, write, do math and put a man on the moon.
Like children can't learn something new on the net. Part of being a parent is watching your kids, and that includes watching what they do on the computer. Computers can also be used to learn to read, afterall what's a person doing on the net if they can't read? Or write, or do math. I once ordered a PC for my sister and her daughter, as part of the software package I ordered educational programs for my neice. Now as to whether she ever used them I don't know. Me, I decided I wanted to major in and become a Computer Engineer in high school after teaching myself BASIC on a dumb terminal in the school library that was hooked up to the mainframe downtown, before the net existed like it does now.
FalconI'd love to be a libertarian, but it seems I'd have to believe that the free market works, and corporations are free to do business however they wish.
In a freemarket corporations would not have the power they currently enjoy. For instance under a freemaket the RI/MPAA wouldn't exist, or at least wouldn't be able to go after grannies or teens because copyrights and patents would not exist.
I wouldn't mind, assuming we returned corporations to a public charter system, in which a corporation may have its charter revoked if it is found to behave illegally.
Yeap, it used to be a corporation could have it's charter cancelled if it didn't live up to it's obligation to improve the commn or public good. Thomas Jefferson railed and warned of corporations and power, Thomas Jefferson: Against Corporate Power.
...Kenneth Lay ...
If the libertarians can promise me that, I'm a convert. 'Cause except for the whole trust-in-the-free-market thing, I'm mostly there.
It was both Democrats and Republicans that allowed Enron to happen, not Libertarians
"I think people should know that the Libertarian party...
- Is going to protect religious freedom.
- Work at freeing you from being a slave to taxes for almost half the year.
- Remove government corruption by removing the monetary incentive.
- Keep government out of your personnel life. You can now shower alone without Sam.
- Protect our country from invaders and disaster, by not scattering our young able bodied citizens all over the earth.
- Listen to this countries citizens rather than it's Enrons.
- Embrace our country's roots as a country of freedom and liberty."
FalconNo need to vote 3rd party: vote for Ron Paul. He is basically a libertarian running as a Republican. The more I listen to the guy, the more I like him.
Ron Paul is Libertarian, but only because the Republican Party no longer is the party of small government, it hasn't been since Ike was pres. I voted for him the first tyme he ran for president in 1988, on the Libertarian Party ticket, and I'll vote for him in 2008 if he's on the ballot. Heck, even though I'm registered No Party Preference, I'll change my registration to Republican so I can vote for him in the primary. Of course after afterwards I'll change right back.
FalconOr what about the end of the days when you could feed 3 people one the wages of one?
That's only because Dick and Jane have to have the lastest and greatest toys, be it iPod, iPhones, or wii, at least before a lot of well paying jobs were outsourced.
Economic realities have a lot more to do with parents letting the boob tube educate their kids then their choice does.
It was thier choice to have one or more children If a person is not in a position to take care of children s/he shouldn't have any.
FalconOr the other side of the coin are the crack whores that pop one out after another simply to get more money from the government to further fuel their addiction.
I guess you're one of those who hasn't heard welfare was reformed in the 1990s after Newt Gingrich had his Contract With America passed. Now there's a tyme limit of 5 years that you can be on welfare and collect money from the feds.
FalconIt's hard for parents to stop kids from viewing offensive content. I remember hearing on the radio that children as young as ten years old are learning how to bypass filtering. Particularly in (previous versions of) Windows, where every user is a root user, it's very difficult to stop the kids from using these root privileges to undo all the work you put in.
It's only hard for those parents who don't parent. They need to watch their children and stop crying to have to government do their job. If they didn't want to be parents they never should have had them.
it's very difficult to stop the kids from using these root privileges to undo all the work you put in.
If a parent can't be there to watch their kids then they need to prevent then from havig access to the computer. Turn it off, have it plugged into an outlet with a switch and turn the switch off, remove the powercord and put it under lock and key. If the kids are that bad, then maybe you need to take parenting classes, sure there's an occasional bad apple but most problems with kids is because parents aren't doing their job.
FalconIn my day, before the wide awareness of the net and the existence of http kids that wanted to jack off in the dark in their bedroom could just go dumpster diving. The neighbor kid had a whole duffel back of wares acquired in just this manner.
Heck, I didn't even have go dumpster diving, my mom gave me playboy and penthouse to look at.
FalconBut I'd rather my kids see a boob and suffice a natural desire, than hrm I dont know drugs, gang banging, drinking, smoking, HAVING sex, skipping school, watching the news and seeking people blown up/burned, and the rest of the horrible things out in the REAL world.
Ah but having sex is one of the good things in the world. As is drinking.
FalconBasically, the bridge is to get tourists to shut the fuck up. Quit your bitching. Suck it up, buttercup.
Make them pay a toll and use the toll revenues to pay off the bonds issued to finance the construction and maintance of the bridge.
FalconAs for growing up in a "dangerous world", I can assure you that what was "normal" behaviour in the 60's towards kids would now land you in jail.
Ain't that true? I recall growing up my mom would occasionally order a glass of wine when we went out to eat. A parent doing that today would be arrested, have thier children taken away, and tossed into gail.
FalconWe grew up in a dangerous world, so will they. Its up to the parents to monitor what they're doing not the state.
"We" grew up in a dangerous internet enabled world.
"They" (Senators/Congress/most parents) didn't.
You may of grown up in an internet enabled world, but not all of us were. I was born before John F Kennedy was shot. There was no web or internet as we know it today while I was growing up. There was arpanet and milnet, which only the rare person knew of.
FalconWe grew up in a dangerous world, so will they. Its up to the parents to monitor what they're doing not the state.
Didn't you know, too many parents want the state, government, to watch their kids, that being a parent is too much work. So they want a nanny state.
FalconIs that the world you want to live in!
Not just yes, but Hell Yes! The human body is nothing to be ashamed of, though specific people should be ashamed of thier own body.
FalconIt was disappointing when Ask bought out Teoma, that was a good search engine.
Yea, I used to use Teoma a lot, when I didn't get a result or not what I was looking for from Google. Another I use a lot also is Mooter. Alta Vista still returns good text search results, though I don't use it much. Another I use, for specific searchs, is About. Actually it was Google that led me to using About. I googled for some archeology and anthropology searchs and Google returned About's Archeology and anthropology section in the top results. Later I googled for something in photogaphy and once again Google returned an About section Photography, in the top spot.
FalconI'll have to look into it at some point.
The original method of electing the president and vice president is in Article 2 section 1. Though reading it again I left out a lot. But like I said Amendment 12 - Choosing the President, Vice-President changed it, the political parties wanted more power.
FalconI have no idea, I never heard of it. Since it's been more than 10 years since I've installed software on a Mac, things may of changed. But as of a few months ago I've heard about the only think you need to do in install software in OSX is create an app folder in the Application folder and drag the .dmg file there. Maybe I heard wrong, I'm going to find RSN as I plan on getting a Macbook Pro.
FalconGoogle isn't just being a saint, either, and fighting for our rights, which apparently are at the mercy of corporations with lots of money (fun!). Google's business strategy is breaking up the current monopolistic industries as a whole so that it can compete in all those markets with it's own software.
Oh, I agree. Google is a business not a charity. However they are pressing for an open market against the incumbents businesses, which benefits the population. Just because an entity makes profit doesn't mean it's bad.
Sure, Google has done some irritating things here and there but as a whole they stick up for consumer freedoms I think. I hope Google never reaches the point where it will be more profitable for them to start taking away freedoms in the spirit of most current monopolies. Hopefully never, since their current leaders seem to understand the benefit of actually going with the grain of consumer freedoms like FOSS, instead of against it, at least for some of their supported software.
Google got big in part because it gave searchers relevant search results as well as "do no evil". However with new leadership Google can turn out the same as other businesses. If they do though another startup can just step up and do the same. Such as "Jimbo" Jimmy Wales from the wikipedia, he's working on a collaberative search engine.
Falcon"Small farmers can grow either, switchgrass for ethanol production and hemp for food or ethanol. This will create an income for these farmers, so it's not either food or fuel"
For a few seconds perhaps, before they are put out of business by the big producers in the west.
Without subsidies big western producers couldn't produce ethanol then ship it for sale to third world countries cheaper than local farmers and producers could. However this wouldn't prevent wealthy landowners there from dominating the industry. And in some cases western companies pay military or paramilitaries groups. For instance Coca Cola has paid paramilitary leaders in Colombia to keep workers from starting unions. Stuff like this though happens because government allows it, and may even encourage it.
FalconI didn't even know what dpkg was until I looked it up after you mentioned it.
You don't need to know. It just works.
Do you know how Windows handles .msi files when you double-click them?
No, I don't know how .msi files work, just that they do although not always that well. And uninstaller routines, when software has one, don't work well either. That's one reason I think OSX is better, there's no registry or dependents. An installer, .dmg, may put .plist files in the preferences folder but that's about it.
FalconIn my original post I asked "Ah but you still have to install Automatix and how many people new to Linux will be able to install it without giving up? ", I didn't specify Ubuntu or Linspire. Ah, going back up the thread I see the person you replied to did specify Kubuntu. However my question still stands, how many switchers will know how to install Automatix? I have Linspire and your post is the first tyme I heard of it.
Ubuntu is based on Debian and includes dpkg in the base install.
So is Linspire. That doesn't mean all Debian, Linspire, or Ubuntu users know dpkg is in the base install. I didn't even know what dpkg was until I looked it up after you mentioned it.
Falcon